Solace
by Loja
Summary: Dick and Bruce both separately reflect briefly on their experiences with grief and the ways they've lived with it.


**Author's note: This short one-shot is essentially about the reflections from Dick and Bruce concerning grief, since they both endured similar tragedies but have very different approaches to dealing with those tragedies. However, even though they both are affected by grief differently, they still have helped each other tremendously in the healing process. I didn't really plan it out before I started writing, so hopefully it has a more "org****anic" flow instead of a more "sucky" flow.**

* * *

Here's the thing about grief that the psychologists don't tell you: you aren't the same person after it. There is no moment where you realize that you're done and it's totally cool to move on and be happy for the rest of your life and never worry that it's going to crawl back into you just when everything is going wrong—or worse, just when everything is going right. And let me tell you, knowing that fact, it sucks. You wake up every day for the rest of your life and know that you can hope, pray, beg until your throat is sore and you're dehydrated by the sheer number of tears you've cried and it won't do anything. At all. Because they are _never_ coming back, not in this lifetime anyway. They are dead and there is nothing you can do about it.

And people, knowing full well that there's nothing anyone can do about it, will talk to you about finding solace. Finding solace in your best memories of them, the ones you should have had more time to make. Well, it's not as easy as it looks. It isn't easy to find comfort in remembering the strong hands of your father catching you when you know those hands are forever buried six feet under. It isn't easy to find ease from grief in remembering your mother's smile as she bent down to give you a kiss on the forehead when you know that there are a thousand other things in her lifetime she should have been there to smile for but she won't be because she was killed. Remembering is the easy part. Finding solace in what you remember is a bit trickier.

I didn't know what grief was before my parents were murdered. I was a circus kid, raised in the big top far from pain, poverty and want. Oh sure, we were by no means rich, not with money anyway. I'm sure it was a worry for my parents. But what did I care about not having enough money for a nice house in our wintering grounds or the hot new toy that all the other kids had? I had a trapeze. I had knife-throwing, lion taming and trick riding lessons every week. I had _elephants_, for chissakes. I mean, who _cares_ about having a big screen HD TV when you have _elephants_ for neighbors? Suffice to say that I was living a content childhood.

But every kid's paradise was stolen from me on that fateful night that ended with my parents—my parents, who were my greatest loves and biggest fans—broken and dead at my feet.

Lesson number one that I learned from grief: eight years old is too young to have no more cause to dream. And dreams are far from a kid's mind when the blood from the two people you love most in the world is caked on your shoes.

Lesson number two: people care. That was the night I met Bruce Wayne: billionaire playboy, alter-ego of Batman, and shining example of emotional constipation. I've often wondered what Bruce saw in me that night that made him want to take me in over any other orphan in the city (God knows there are plenty of them in need of a home that provides a reliable source of food and a decent bed). Sometimes I think that he took me in because he saw a boy with skills he could mold to his war on crime. Sometimes I think he was looking for a kindred spirit in grief. In my more jaded moments, sometimes I think he just took me in to prevent me from becoming just another criminal that he'd have to hunt down in a decade or so (like another angry boy I once knew…).

But most of the time, I think that he was just trying to be a good person, and good people want to help when they can. And of all the people watching that show that night, there was no one better to help me with my grief.

No one better, and no one who would be more ill-equipped and challenged by the daunting task of raising a grief-stricken child into adulthood. It wasn't even that I was a child mourning the death of my parents that made it so hard for Bruce; it was the fact that I was a _child_ period. Bruce explained to me when he took me in that his own parents had been murdered. It didn't take me long to realize that what was inside Bruce wasn't just grief. It was rage. He felt it all the time because it was the only thing he could feel. Sure, he hid it well under that black cowl. But I knew what grief looked like, and that madness glinting in his eyes as he obsessed over criminals on his computer and beat them to a bloody pulp on the streets was not just grief. It had morphed into something more…_sinister_ than that. On some nights early on in my relocation to Wayne Manor, it was so intense that I was actually afraid of—or was it for?—the man who held me awkwardly after every nightmare, read Robin Hood to me every night to coax me back to sleep, and burned every breakfast he ever made for me (which was admittedly very few—but seriously Bruce, burned cereal? I never did get the full story on that one).

But I think Bruce knew. He knew what grief had done to him, and he saw the same opportunity for it to do evil things to me. Bruce was by no means a perfect parent, and he still isn't. But he shared a common goal that is found with every other good parent in the universe—to give their child a happy, healthy, better life. On that night that I came to him, I think he swore, consciously or subconsciously, that he was going to use all of the considerable resources at his disposal to protect me. To spare me. In the way he couldn't be.

To that end, I became Robin. I brought my parents' murderer to justice. And when that was done, I did the same thing with countless other thugs, crazies, wayward vigilantes, and intergalactic raiders. When I outgrew that role, I moved on to Nightwing. But it still hurt. Losing them, I mean. Knowing they never saw me perform in the big school play, get my driver's license, graduate high school, move into my first place. Little things that aren't going to matter to anyone a century from now. But things that mattered a lot to me when they were happening.

I still feel the pain sometimes, and the resentment that it was them who had to lose their lives when they still had lives worth living (but then again, so does pretty much everyone at the times of their deaths). It cuts like a knife and leaves me wounded under a pile of blankets on my bed in the dead of night crying my eyes out like I think the world needs more salt water. But that's okay, actually. I'm okay with that. Grief offers no promises of a return to what you were before. It pretty much guarantees that there's no going back. But what it does promise is this: you feel human. And that's awesome. Because if humans can grieve as hard as they do, that means that they loved just as hard as well. And that is something pure. That is something that can't be touched. That is something that's worth the pain.

And as for those moments I mentioned, the ones that my parents missed…I miss them. Terribly. But since they weren't there, someone else got to enjoy them. Someone who I think really needed to remember how to enjoy things. Bruce sat in the front row at my school play. Probably at Alfred's blessed goading, but he was there anyway. He smiled and waved when I joined hands with the other fourth graders and took a bow at the end. Jeez, I was _ecstatic_. When I got my driver's license, he gave me this beautiful '68 Camaro with silver with slick black racing stripes, black leather, an engine suped up courtesy of Batman, and…a tracker. One that relayed my exact speed and condition of the car along with my location to his computer. One that would automatically shut down the car if it were ever tampered with. Apparently he was still allowed to worry about me during the day while being totally cool with me getting shot at by all manner of thuggery at night.

He almost missed my high school graduation due to another Joker breakout. But just as I was about to walk across the stage, I caught his entrance out of the corner of my eye. He looked disheveled, but _proud_. I made my way over to Alfred and him after graduation and he actually hugged me. After that incident a few months earlier where I blew up the Camaro but narrowly avoided death by bailing out seconds before it went over the cliff, he'd been a little icier (I'd like to point out that that incident was Roy's fault...all Roy's). So that hug meant a lot. And when I moved into my first place…I remember how embarrassed he looked with his eyes glued to the floor as he shuffled his feet and flitted the envelope in his hands. Then he handed it over to me.

"Here's a gift from Alfred and I…to say congratulations. Call it a house-warming gift."

I opened the envelope in front of him and immediately my eyebrows shot up. "What's this?"

"A note from your landlord recognizing that your first six months of rent have been paid. To get you off to a good start. So you don't have to worry while you're getting settled in."

Since this incident occurred before my inheritance of my trust fund, six pre-paid months of rent was nothing to sneeze at. "Bruce…," I started, "…it's really nice of you to do that, but I don't want you to think that I can't—"

"No! It's not like that. It's just that I encouraged you to take this apartment even though it was a little more expensive than your other options because this place had better location and security. I know you can afford it. I just wanted to…help."

I quirked my eyebrow and crossed my arms, unable to stop myself from smiling a little. "Security, huh? So the fact that this place is two blocks from your penthouse which means you can come over to visit more often had nothing to do with you trying to convince me to move here?"

"Well…it certainly didn't hurt this location in the considerations."

I chuckled and clapped my hand on his shoulder. "Thanks Bruce, I really appreciate it. Now for the love of Superman, if I don't get pizza from that place on the corner in my stomach _right this second_ then I'm going to become emotional over this gift. And we both know you don't want that."

My parents weren't there for any of it. But I think that Bruce is damn sure glad that he was.

Grieving isn't easy. Living with the memories of the people you lost isn't easy. But what does get easier is living. Because even if you can't share all those moments with them, if you're really human, if you really let yourself love as fiercely as you grieve, then you're going to be fine. Because you'll have so many other loved ones to share those moments, and that, that right there, is solace. Finding it is hard. But that doesn't give you the excuse not to try.

* * *

My parents' deaths were…difficult. Suffice to say that the event resulted in scars of the…grieving variety. As a child, death may be comprehensible, but death is something that comes to the old grandparent or the family dog or the person in the news that is famous but you don't quite know why. It is _not_ something that comes to the people who serve as the central focus of your life, the people to whom you look to safeguard you from the monsters in your closet and under your bed. As a child, it was a disturbing realization for me that the world's monsters are not hidden in the crevices of our darkened bedrooms. They are out there. They are among us. And they are hunting.

My family was prey. The place where they were felled was a darkened alleyway exactly two hundred and eighty-six feet from the entrance of the Monarch Theater. From safety, security, prosperity, and the entertainment of escapism. But there is no escaping the image of the gaping hole in my father's chest, his blood soaking my knees, three of my mother's red-stained pearls rolling listlessly in my palm.

It was at that moment, surrounded in that alleyway by the workings of the monsters my parents couldn't see until it was too late, that I realized that there needed to be a change in the food chain. These criminals had rotted Gotham to its core with their relentless hunting and killing of innocents. It was time for something to start hunting _them_.

Grief is a powerful driver. Of the range of human emotions—and I have seen an extensive range of emotion, typically towards the negative persuasion, on the faces of the people I have encountered in my mission—it is perhaps one of the strongest. But it is also-self destructive in that the human mind can only handle so much before grief is removed from the range of emotional possibilities as the mind, acting in self-preservation, eliminates the abilities needed to make the emotional connections that are necessitated as a precursor to grief. I believed that, after my parents' death, I had reached this point. I could never experience grief again because my mind no longer facilitated it.

I still cared…deeply…for a few certain people. Alfred, of course, was like a father to me, albeit a father who was more reserved with his affections. Leslie, also, remained on my side through all of the earlier trials and tribulations, and for that I am eternally grateful to her. There were a few others as well, particularly close friends whose loyalty was never questioned. Like Clark, maybe.

…Not Clark. There is a part of me that will be forever suspicious of an alien overgrown boy scout with God powers.

….And I never forgave him for those damn Superman pajamas that Dick wore until he was twelve.

Though I cared about all these people, I never felt the need to be _human_ for them. I never felt the need to reclaim the buried parts of my mind for them. Perhaps it was because that I knew if I died, they would grieve, but they would go on living. If I retreated further into my mission, they would not attempt to retrieve me. If I stopped coming home, preferring instead to catch brief moments of sleep at one of my many safe houses in the city in between patrols, then they would not be damaged. In short, I did not attempt to change my mind's reception of grief because I had no incentive. While Alfred and the others care so deeply for me, they can continue on without me if I die, just as I could continue on without them if any of them died despite the fact that they are the few remaining people I had an emotional connection to. The change would not come until someone else arrived in my life, someone who _truly _needed me to be there. Someone that I…truly couldn't lose. A child. My child.

I remember the first time I saw him up close: minutes after his parents' deaths. There was grief written all over his face, yes, but there was something else too. A certain strength that is an uncommon find, which was visible in his eyes. Eyes moist with tears, but still alight with bright determination to live.

I cannot explain my exact rationale for taking Dick in when I did. I likely did not have an exact rationale. I just knew it to be right. I justified it by saying I would never be his parent. In that way, I could rationalize it as something logical. The boy needed a home. He did _not _need a family, not with his own lying so recently dead at his feet.

I meant it, too. I had no intention of becoming a father. But there was just _something_ about that boy. I stood in awe at his resilience. His first few months at the Manor were plagued with nightmares and general unhappiness. The former I attempted to assuage; the latter…I knew I had to bring Dick's parents' murderer to justice before I could worry about that. After that time, however, before even Boss Zucco was brought to justice, he just _bounced_ quite literally and figuratively back to much of what I assumed to be his old personality.

Before Dick came to the Manor, I had no reason to fear death. I had no reason to preserve myself. No reason to come home. But that boy…how could I not come home to those stupid Superman pajamas and that stuffed elephant under his arm as he was begging me to read just one more chapter? How could I not be more careful out in the field when I knew that every day I went out there I was putting him at risk of being orphaned a second time? And death…not fear of it for myself, but for…well. That's why I trained him so well. So I wouldn't have to go through that. And I won't have to go through that.

I won't.

Grief is hard. But the world does not permit you to shut down in the face of it. The world…that cacophony of chaos which breeds the very elements that steal the innocents from us all. But occasionally, the world gives us some small compensation for what it has taken. I look at Nightwing—now a grown man, compassionate, brilliant, well-liked, strong, and loyal to a fault— and knowing that I had some hand in the person he is today gives me some small feeling of compensation. And those are the feelings that have to be held on to in order to defeat grief. I mean, as much as it _can_ be defeated. It will always be a part of me, just as I am a part of this city. I come into its lowest dregs to wreak havoc on the scum that live there just as grief will do to the weakest parts of the mind. But to have…help, to have someone that gives you some _light_, that…

"Bruce!"

Speak of the devil…as I was saying…that is an incredible…

"HEY! Bruce! Got tickets at the last minute to the roller derby downtown tonight! But we need to leave right now so hurry up and get dressed!"

It really is remarkable how loud he can be without actually being in sight yet. As I was saying, it is a weapon whose strength I overlooked for many years…

"BRUCE! I'm not KIDDING AROUND here! The Gotham Rolling Crusaders are hosting the championship against the Metropolis Women of Steel! WE. CANNOT. MISS. THIS!"

GOD DAMMIT.

I whirl around to unleash hell on this interruption and there Dick is with that goofy grin, two tickets between the fingers of his raised hand.

"Come on Bruce. It's been a little while since we had a night on the town, out of costume or in it. I'll even throw in a smug bragging call to Clark afterwards if the Crusaders win. I'll pretend that he hasn't been one of my favorite superheroes since age five and you can squirrel in a few references to the Boy Scouts. It'll be fun."

I muster one of my glares—not one of my most powerful, but somewhere up there. I open my mouth and take a microsecond to glance back to my computer—which is an empty screen at the moment. It has been a quite night. My protests die in my throat. "_Fine_. But _two conditions_: first, I drive and no, we aren't taking any of the motorcycles. Second, not an _ounce_ of mercy for Clark if Metropolis loses. I know you."

His grin widens and he removes his mask to reveal electric blue eyes—with the same determination I saw all those years ago, but now with joy instead of pain. It is a vast improvement. "Deal. I have a change of clothes upstairs. Let's get going!"

I hold my scowl just until he turns to go up the stairs before I permit a small smile. Solace in grief. Sometimes I think it would be easier not to have it, so that I could always resent the world and the things it's done to me. But if I resent the world, I must by extension resent the things it has given me. But I don't. I am instead grateful. And perhaps, perhaps that is solace.

"BRUCE! Get OUT of that chair and get up here!" Dick's voice booms over the intercom.

I smile again and rise. Apparently, solace is also very pushy when Roller Derby in on the line.

The End.


End file.
